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Kevin Spacey vs. Humphrey Bogart: Another study in character wins the day 

April 2000

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a screenwriter. But I'm no slouch when it comes to the English language. I know how to write, and I sure know how to cut dialogue,  it's just writing fiction that gives me the willies. How you people do it — and do it so well — is beyond me. 

I do like to work with the wonderful dialogue that some of you folks come up with. It's so marvelous the way some of those words roll off the tongue. There's nothing like a crisp, impactful set of phrases to "make my day". Even better is a crisp set of characters that deliver a story that serves up some refreshing insights into human nature.

Thus we come to American Beauty, a film that penetrates the veneer of marriage in suburbia. Like Humphrey Bogart before him, Kevin Spacey in his role as Lester Burnham demonstrates the timeless appeal of a character who, at first, appears only to be concerned with his own needs, but in the end makes the sacrifices no one expects him to make.

This is the kind of role that Humphrey Bogart carried so well, although the man himself might appear a bit out of place in turn of the millenium suburbia. But Bogart sits right on the front lines between the social and the individual. In film, he started out playing gangsters, which is as self-interested as a character is likely to get. In Casablanca, the first film to explore all the moral dimensions of  Bogart's character, the suspense of the story hangs on whether Rick is going to go for himself, or make a sacrifice for the cause of the war. 

And in his subsequent roles, this is the razor edge, the cusp where Bogart sits in his character. Is he going to be for himself, or for the larger cause? Because every Bogart move, every gesture, suggests he is for himself. But in the end, he has a heart of gold. In Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Sabrina, this role is reversed again, proving, naturally, that self-sacrifice is never a sure thing.

Spacey in American Beauty has done the same thing but with a narcissistic twist. There is a depravity about him that was perfect for this role, a character trait that will be used again and again to explore the ambiguities of life, the constant and irresolvable tension between social and individual needs. 

Which proves again that the filmmaker's richest rewards come with exploring and then resolving a moral dilemma. 

-John C. Graves